


I Want You, I Need You (But Ain't No Way I'm Ever Gonna Love You)

by laudatenium



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Tony, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Misunderstandings, Requited Love, Stream of Consciousness, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-16 04:18:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3474167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudatenium/pseuds/laudatenium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And maybe he notices how Steve’s fingers flex toward him, unbeknownst to himself, and Tony knows that it’s a physical reaction, because Steve is touch-starved and always horny, and it’s not as though he wants to caress Tony’s skin, or god forbid, hold his hand.</p><p>---</p><p>In which Tony is in love with Steve, they sleep together, and friends-with-benefits destroys them both.  For a little while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want You, I Need You (But Ain't No Way I'm Ever Gonna Love You)

**Author's Note:**

> All titles from "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf.
> 
> Been busy w/ school and planning some longer fics, so have some experimental Steve/Tony friends-with-benefits angst. Happy ending, because I am me and can't do anything else.
> 
> FYI, yes Tony is wooby, I am incapable of writing him like an unemotional robot, so I overcompensate.

He was warm.

 

_Well, that’s . . . unusual._

 

It wasn’t _bad_ , not really, not at all.  But he never woke up this warm.  Like, _other person_ warm.

 

He should probably open his eyes, should investigate the source of the warmth, but he couldn’t bring himself to.  After several years of waking in a panic in his own bed, of taking a precious ten seconds to figure out _where exactly_ he was, making sure he was safe, not in captivity, he always made sure he was at home surrounded by the things he made.  (Pepper and Steve always complained at him about sleeping down in the workshop, but it was the only place he woke up completely knowing his surroundings.)

 

He could tell he is in his own bed, upstairs in the penthouse, so that was good, but it usually took a second to wrench himself from unconsciousness.  Waking was always a jolting thing for him, wrenching from one state to another, the switch moving from “Off” to “On” immediately. 

 

When he woke up, he always was up and out of bed as soon as he could be, contrary to popular belief.  There was no reason to lay around in bed, not when there was a world to protect and change and improve.  And there was never anything worth saying in bed for.

 

It was comfortable.  So often he wasn’t.  So maybe a minute more wouldn’t hurt.

 

There was a body, pressed against his own, lined up perfectly, like matching cogs in their track beds.  There was a deep-seated contentment in his bones, like he’d gotten something he’d desperately needed.

 

There was the sticky, tacky feeling on his skin that went with vigorous sex, and the loose feeling in his ass implied he’d bottomed.  Strange.

 

He _never_ bottomed.  Not that it wasn’t enjoyable, but for someone in his position, he needed to maintain control.  Bottoming was about letting go, giving into vulnerability, for him at least, and no matter how much he ached for it, it wasn’t something he gave to anyone.  There were precious few he could trust, and only one he wanted.

 

But he never _slept_ with anyone either.  Only Pepper had been trusted enough, and it had been a while since she had lovingly explained that while she loved him, she wasn’t _in love_ with him, and that she had come to the conclusion that they were only ever together for the sake of convenience.

 

He hadn’t been as torn up about it as he might have been, because of what had developed against his will when she had been gone, and he wasn’t able to control it, and she probably understood and saw it before he could name what he was feeling.

 

He liked to cuddle, to curl up in the warmth of another, but the people who occupied his bed in the olden days were not those who he could laze about with, and now there was no one he was taking to bed for that to even happen.

 

A soft breath ruffled his hair, and the warmth of the hard chest beneath his head and the pleasant ache in his ass connected, and he remembered.

 

_Oh god._

 

Steve had his arm slung low around Tony’s naked hips. He was plastered along Steve’s left side, face buried in the skin and muscle of his shoulder.  Steve was breathing deeply, more at ease than Tony had ever seen him.

 

They had slept together.  Well, had sex then fallen asleep together, and Tony didn’t know what was worse, that he managed to get Steve to sleep with him, or that he gotten Steve to _sleep_ with him.

 

Love wasn’t something he'd ever wanted.  It was inconvenient at best, a weakness at worst, and how much did he know about weakness?  He was a walking weakness, a scarred mass of mistakes and loneliness and alcoholism, emotionally stunted and unable to operate as a normal human.  He could create, he could destroy, he could rise again, but never go smoothly through life, just live with all the normal joys and sorrows that most people had.

 

The worst part about love was that it ended.

 

And knowing himself, he would be the one to destroy it.

 

Steve didn’t care.  He’d moved into the Tower, and taken up residence in that blackened crevice in his heart, the one that was clean and healthy for most people, maybe a little cluttered, but his was twisted and black and starved.

 

Steve just when about his business, trying to settle himself, making the team his new family.  _“The way I grew up, friends and comrades are just an extension of the family, so sorry if that’s not what you’re used to,”_ he’d announced to them all, and they had just been so fucking charmed, stepping up to be Steve Rogers’ family, and Tony just couldn’t be content with just that, could he, so he’d gone and fallen in love with the bed head, the dry remarks, and the man who knew his history yet chose to believe in him.

 

He was in love with Steve.  He knew it like electrical currents and alloys and physics, like he knew pain and hurt and loneliness.

 

There was a reason he wore armor.  He’d worn it forever, but it had only solidified and turned metal very recently.

 

The worst was the memory that Steve seemed just as desperate for it as Tony had been.

 

He didn’t move.  This was the last he would have of this.  He was going to savor it.

 

Steve sniffed, once lightly, a second time more harsh, then “Oh.”

 

“Morning.”  His final seconds before his universe crumbles, and he _will_ enjoy it.

 

Steve doesn’t seem in a hurry to move.  He sniffs again, rubs an open palm over his face and lets it trail through his hair.  Yaws, stretches in an odd way, like he’s pressing himself deeper into the mattress.  Why he isn’t shoving Tony away and shouting, he doesn’t know.

 

“Morning?”  Steve looks at him, wary, and he wants to lose it.

 

“We don’t have to let this affect anything?”  Because he can’t lose Steve, he’s lost so much and he can’t lose this as well.

 

Steve looks shocked, almost hurt, then bites his lip, before speaking haltingly.  “We – _don’t_ have to let this affect anything.  We can – we can have, like ah, friends-with-benefits thing?”  It came out as a question.

 

Well.  That’s more than he would ever ask for.

 

“Alright.”

 

Steve smiles slightly, but something in his eyes looks shattered as he crawls out of Tony’s bed.

 

He’s an idiot.  Why on Earth he ever agreeded to something like this, with _Steve_ , he’ll never know. 

 

That’s a lie.  He knows now exactly what he’s missing, and is incapable of going without now that he knows.  It’s like the internet: sure, he lived without it for over twenty years, but now that he has it?  Not giving it up for the world.

 

He doesn't cry.

 

He doesn't have anything worth crying over.

 

This doesn’t mean anything.

 

So he doesn't cry.

 

So what if his eyes have always had a tendency to water.

 

It doesn’t _mean_ anything.

 

No matter if it was far more intense than anything he had ever experienced.

 

He’ll take what he can get.

 

 

 

 

He doesn't seek Steve out, not the first time, because that would have involved immediately following him out the door.

 

It takes two days.

 

It takes two days of sitting at a workbench, creating massive feats of engineering, trying to avoid thinking of _what has happened why did it happen why on Earth did I agree to this this is going to kill me_ all while he hasn’t taken a shower, so there is that faint scent on his skin, of sex, of Steve, of everything he wants and nothing he can have.

 

And the door hisses open, and Steve is sanding there, looking, well, _amazing_ always amazing, but troubled, worn, like he’s made up his mind and it was _not_ an easy decision, but he’s going to do it anyway, damn the cost.  Like he’s set out on a journey he won’t come back from alive, but it’s okay, because staying home would be the death of him, too.

 

“Are – are you busy?”  He looks nervous.

 

Always, but not enough to not be there when Steve wants him.  Nothing Steve wants from him can wait, because while the world spins on, Tony is trapped in place, because his world revolves around Steve now, and when did that happen, that wasn’t supposed to happen, but he knows why, and he’s powerless in its face.  The great Tony Stark, laid helpless by a love he couldn’t have.  “For you?  Nope.  Whatcha need?”

 

_What I wouldn’t give for you to say me._

 

“You,” but he knows Steve doesn’t mean it in the way Tony wants it.

 

And Steve’s suddenly next to him, reaching out, and Tony melts into Steve’s chest, and Steve kisses him, long and low and deep, because Steve is considerate, and would probably kiss a prostitute.  Maybe Steve just likes kissing.  Tony can’t question it.

 

Because he knows, the second he questions it, it will evaporate, smoke through his fingers and quantum mechanics in the clouds, and he must hold on to this, for as long as he can, because when it’s over, he’ll be vapor too.  Because this has robbed him of his substance, because he can’t be content with friendship and the possibility of having Steve nearby for years, no, he’ll take it, all of it, whatever he can get.

 

And this may very well be the end of him, but for this moment, with Steve everywhere he wants him but not where he needs him, he’ll take it, he’ll fucking take it, because there’s some saying he mocked, about it being better to have loved and lost, and he’s paying for it now, because this is love and yet it isn’t, and this is what he gets for not believing in love, for ridiculing those who found it.

 

But he’ll fucking take it.  He’ll take whatever he can get.

 

He whines, and melts into Steve, and ruts into him like some sort of fucking animal.

 

"Well, you're eager, aren't you?"

 

So he has to pace himself.

 

Because maybe he can prolong his path to non-existence.

 

 

 

He doesn’t see Steve as much as before.

 

Before this _thing_ started, Steve would spend hours down in the workshop, reading or drawing or napping on the couch.  Tony would be in his groove, happy that he had Steve there, to ramble at, and he was so grateful, because no one can ever keep up with him, but no one but Steve was ever willing to just sit and listen to things he could never fully understand.

 

Now the only time Steve goes near the couch in the workshop is when he’s fucking Tony into it.

 

Whenever Steve comes down to the workshop now, he’s already hard and grabby, and Tony drops everything, because he can’t not give Steve things when he wants them.

 

He fills so full, yet so empty.  Because this is what he wanted, wasn’t it?

 

And the worst part is, he knows that if things were different, he wouldn’t drop everything for Steve.  If they were together, Tony would bitch and moan half-heartedly and Steve would smile indulgently before firing right back, and they would fall asleep together.

 

He would have Steve’s attention, and wouldn’t need to sacrifice anything for time with him.

 

If they were together, Steve would want Tony all the time.

 

But they’re not, so now he barely sees Steve apart from Avenging, team bonding, and fucking.

 

Aside from that, Steve avoids him.

 

 

 

But he still gets to _hang out_ with Steve, in a group setting, because they don't want to let this change the team dynamic, and it’s both wonderful and terrible, because if things were slightly different, Steve’s arm would be around his waist and he would be able to make snide comments in Steve’s ear, and Steve would favor him with a smile that belonged only to Tony.

 

And maybe he notices how Steve’s fingers flex toward him, unbeknownst to himself, and Tony knows that it’s a physical reaction, because Steve is touch-starved and always horny, and it’s not as though he wants to caress _Tony’s_ skin, or god forbid, hold his hand.

 

So he sits a good two feet away, cold no matter the temperature because he knows what proper warmth feels like, and keeps his hands and heart to himself.

 

 

 

Steve’s always horny.

 

So their _encounters_ happen usually once a day.  Usually more.  And he’s not twenty-five anymore, goddamnit, but it’s Steve, looking at him with darkened eyes, very aroused and very sad, and Tony doesn’t know why Steve always looks so destroyed nowadays, like someone is skinning the flesh of his heart off an atom at a time.

 

And maybe sex isn’t what Steve needs, but what else can Tony give him? 

 

His heart?  That twisted piece of burned metal?  Steve already has it, if he wanted it.

 

 

 

And every time Steve stands up, it feels like razors shredding his vulnerable insides, leaving him a bloody, aching pulp, searching for the balm that is walking out the door.

 

 

 

Steve leaves for his first mission since they began their . . . arrangement.  He’s gone for five days, and Tony alternates between bingeing in the workshop and eating every carton of that new wine ice cream that they can find on the couch with Clint.

 

Clint gestures with his spoon.  “You’re pathetic, you know?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You didn’t mope this much when Pepper left you.”

 

“Such a tragedy.”

 

“You’re an idiot, you know?”

 

“And you’re so perceptive?”

 

Clint picks up the peach white zinfandel and mumbles into the carton, “Maybe the dick up your ass should tell you something.”

 

So Tony throws a gummy worm at his head.  Clint, being Clint, catches it with his teeth.

 

 

 

Steve comes home dirty and tired.

 

And horny.

 

“Oh god, Tony, I needed this.”

 

He buries his face in Tony’s neck.  And whispers, like he doesn’t want Tony to hear.

 

_“You don’t know how much I needed this.”_

 

 

 

He pretends.

 

When, after battles, Steve marches down to the workshop and strips Tony out of his undersuit, hurriedly prepping him and pushing in.  It’s rough, harsh, and he loves every second of it, because Steve stares into his eyes the entire time as he holds Tony against the wall.

 

He pretends, that it’s not just adrenaline, that Steve staring into his eyes as he pounds in is Steve making sure _he’s_ there, that _Tony’s_ there, not just that Steve’s clinging to any sign of life he can find.

 

So he lets himself cling as well, he lets himself have this, because it’s damn well all he’s ever going to get, and he’ll fucking take it.

 

He tells Steve that he has watery eyes, and not to worry about it.

 

 

 

And it happens almost every night.

 

Tony can’t sleep without the scent of Steve on his skin and his sheets anymore.  So as much as it pains him, he doesn’t stop it.

 

Even if Steve doesn’t stay.

 

Steve takes a lot longer to recover than one might assume.  He lays, sprawled across Tony, breathing harshly, inhaling deeply, like he’s savoring the scent of their coupling, like he needs that proof of another body next to him.

 

Steve could be doing this with anyone.  Tony doesn’t know if it would hurt worse to see him with someone else.

 

At least here, he can pretend.

 

He can pretend that Steve can’t sleep without him either, that Steve has to force himself to stand up, that Steve doesn’t want to leave the bed anymore than Tony wants him to, that the sigh and the deep breaths are him arguing with himself to stay. 

 

He pretends to be asleep, and Steve always presses a kiss to his brow.

 

So, he pretends.  That Steve could love him too.

 

 

 

“Tony.”

 

There’s a tone in his voice, one he doesn’t want to hear.  There’s something final, resolute in it, and the words that follow must be something he’s thought long and hard about.

 

“We – we need to stop this.”

 

It didn’t hurt like he thought it would.  He was just . . . empty.

 

“They say – they say with these types of – _situations_ , that – that you’re supposed to stop them if emotions ever get involved.”  Steve closes his eyes, and breathes out through his nose.  “So we need to stop.”

 

So he had figured it out then.

 

Steve had figured out that Tony wasn’t in this for sex, Tony was being dishonest about his feelings, Tony was in love with him.

 

And he didn’t want to do this with someone who lied and used people like Tony Stark.

 

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 should come in due course.
> 
> And this is a different style, let me know what you think of it.


End file.
